Bear Heart
by ZombieChick67
Summary: Evet is alone. Her sister's dead; she never really had her mother; and her dad ran away with a French tart. Maybe. She left her new home for the Boston woods with every intention of not returning alive. But then she met Connor, and maybe now she's not alone anymore. Maybe. Can she keep it together for her sisters' bones and her eagle-eyed savage? Maybe. Trigger warning. Connor/OC.
1. Dead Ebony

**_Warning:_**_ This story may contain triggers for depression and suicidal thoughts. If there is any chance that this can affect you, please don't read it. Contains a very macabre and depressed main character._

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**Dead Ebony.**

"Won't it be wonderful to live in nature, dear?" Anne-Marie chirped. Her hands were clasped together and her feet threatened to take her away in a dance that may very well never stop. "Oh we'll have to wash out clothes in a stream! Oh, won't it be quaint? We'll stalk through the trees and catch our own supper! Oh, we'll be true natives by the end of the month – the end of the day! Oh dear heart, how splendid life is in this new world, our new world!"

"Yes, mother."

"Ebony, blessed precious one, just imagine! You'll look out your window one morning and a deer will be peeking in! Oh, by the end of our first year here, we'll be shooing away the little woodland creatures as though they were pesky neighbours!" Anne-Marie trilled a thrilled laugh, almost mimicking exactly a sparrow's song. A sparrow was indeed always the creature that sprang to Evet's mind when she thought of her mother: a feathery little thing, always singing and fluttering around, thoroughly in the clouds.

Ebony smiled her skeleton's grin. "You make it sound like a fairy tale," she said, placating their excitable mother. Her glassy eyes sought Evet's and they rolled dramatically. Despite life, Evet grinned back at her dead sister. Ebony had consumption, and was dying.

In fact, she died a year ago when she became too weak to do anything. Now Evet had privately decided that the sister she helped move around the ship on their way from England to America was just the lingering spirit of her sister. She wouldn't dare to mention it aloud, because Ebony would just sigh and silently agree with her (she always did); her mother would cry some more; and her uncle would yell.

Her uncle, Daniel, was a logger. Or a builder. Or a soldier. Or something. Maybe. Who knew anymore? He took her father's place in the family after her original father died. Ebony was four, and Evet was only one. The way her mother would tell it, he was a brave, dashing soldier whose life came to a tragic end after he sacrificed himself for the good of his family, and his country. Anne-Marie always told his story in a breathless voice, and her eyes became positively bejewelled with crystal tears.

Then again, maybe he just pissed off with some Parisian. Evet wasn't bothered; he wasn't with her "family", so who cared whether he was in Heaven or Paris?

"Ah, Autumn!" Daniel boomed, sucking up the crisp air and breathing it out of his mouth. "Lovely time of year, isn't it?"

"Won't that mean good work for you, Uncle?" Ebony said, her words trickling from her mouth like fog rolling across the ocean. "More dead trees, more for you to cut down?"

Huh. Guess he was a logger after all.

"Not necessarily," he said, shaking his head "It means more dead leaves, and more dangerous conditions. But yes, I suppose that means more work for me after all!"

Evet hunched her thin shoulders against the peal of booming, abrasive laughter that was being emitted from Daniel's mouth hole. It grated her ears like the salt from the sea spray burnt and stung the cracked, dry lips that Evet put up with having on her face. And, like with the spray, all she could do about it was turn away and wait for it to be over.

"Oh no, dear, I hope that it won't be too dangerous for you!" Anne-Marie wittered at Daniel "We wouldn't want you to have an accident."

"Never matter, love! I'll be right as rain," Daniel said, wafting away her concerns as though they were smoke in the air. Satisfied that his reassurance would guarantee that he wouldn't get hurt on the job, Anne-Marie took Ebony's bones and took her to the railing of the ship, where they were drawing ever closer to America. The ports and tiny people were coming into view, and it would only be a matter of minutes before they were there, little drops of water being sucked into a raging river that would grow and expand until it flooded the entire country.

"Oh, I do so love Autumn! Winter is nice and all, but the snow melts ever so quickly. Oh! If it snows here in America, we should have a family outing! Oh, it'll be darling! Simply -"

"Yes, Autumn is a joy indeed," Ebony cut in, putting an effective stop to their mother's ramblings. Anne-Marie smiled warmly at her daughter before turning her eager orbs towards the bustling docks of Boston.

Evet didn't see what was so great about Autumn. It was all a bit macabre, when you thought about it. It all looked so beautiful, until you realised that everything was actually just dying. The weather had a fit for three months, blustering with wind, and then weeping with rain until it decided that it was irate, and began three months under its blistering anger. To think that people rejoiced for mood swings in the weather was absurd.

But, without many other options, Evet joined her sister and her mother at the railings at the side of the ship. America. A whole new land, with so many stones unturned, a lifetime of secrets that its' lands had to behold. It lay before them, waiting for its coasts to be walked, enjoyed, _lived_ – then mapped. A new country for exploring, getting lost in, being found in, for living in – then having its borders drawn up and divided.

A light touch of flesh upon her hand, made Evet snap out of her thoughts: Ebony had placed her bones upon Evet's hand, and was running her thumb along the top of said hand. Like Evet's hand was a rumpled set of clothes that had been tossed carelessly onto the ground, and she was trying to smooth out the creases.

Sister regarded sister. In the newly born rays of sunlight that were skating towards them from across the sky, Evet could see her sister again – the Ebony that she met before consumption came to stay. When Ebony was shining and alive. Shining right now in Ebony's eyes – the _real_ Ebony – was a tender look. Tender, but sorry. Sad.

Separating her gaze from her sister's, Evet looked towards naked, new America. Ebony looked away too, but when Evet turned her cold hand up to go palm-to-palm with her sick sister's soft hand, Ebony grinned. It was most definitely a beautiful one.


	2. Oaken Harte

**Oaken Harte.**

Did time really exist, or was it just clocks? Did it matter? No, probably not.

Evet stared blankly at the monster that sat on her sister's chest. It was a jolly thing; it laughed all the time, but its laughter rang out in the form of the violent coughs that racked Ebony's body. It was getting bigger, too. Fatter. It must eat Ebony's body or something, because it swelled and bloated as she grew frailer and weaker. Ugly and black, it grinned smugly from its perch on her ribs. Evet narrowed her eyes at the way it nibbled at the edges of Ebony, blurring her soft outline and gnawing its way down to her ribs, leaving the unwanted bone to stick out and make a new, sharper outline.

"What are you scowling at, Miss Grumpy?" Anne-Marie trilled, marching into the room. She seized the soft fabric of the curatins and tore them apart, letting golden light tumble into the room and pool onto the wooden floor.

"We were just chatting, mum," Ebony said smoothly. "Talking about how we like Boston so far and stuff."

"Oh isn't that great?" Anne-Marie beamed, her attitude outshining the Sun. "And how _are_ you liking America, dear hearts?"

"Oh we think it's swell, but what about you?" Ebony said, handing their mother the key to a long winded monologue.

_'Bless your decomposing heart, Ebony'_ Evet thought with relief. Anne-Marie was forever asking hard questions that poked Evet in the side, demanding her to speak and answer her, and Ebony always knocked the hand away and turned it back to their mother who delighted in talking incessantly.

Whenever Evet was together with her sister, she felt like she could breathe. She was getting good at breathing.

Boston had been their place of residence for five weeks now, and it was actually alright. Around their homestead there were a few homes and families, but they never bothered one another with annoyances like "warm welcomes". True to his expectations, Daniel had found plenty of work felling giants and selling their dead bodies for bits of paper and metal. Her "family" had integrated well with the community; her mother was an enthusiastic member of multiple groups and clubs; Daniel helped light the street lights at dusk and had collected a few logger friends; Ebony was usually too ill to do much, but the tutor that Anne-Marie had hired to help her along with her basic studies was welcomed by Ebony into her life.

"Evet? Are you still here?" Daniel's voice boomed across the house not sounding unlike the giant door that he also let slam shut at the same moment. "You'd better hurry along to see your… to see Doctor Harte. Don't be late now."

Standing up, Evet walked across the room, feigning deaf to the silence that her mother was now producing. It was a unique silence. The night held its own silence; death had its silence; even the calamity of battle held its own brand of hush. The only word for Anne-Marie's quiet was shameful.

A few long strides across the room, and Evet was at the door. The loaded silence teeming with quiet shame that nothing would ever disguise was hanging off the back of Evet's skirts. It's long, grimy fingers kneaded and plucked at her hem, and she snatched it out of its' grasp and quickly shut the door on it. She breathed in the air of the trees quickly and deeply, but the silence still scratched at the door from the inside, howling and deafening her, determined to not let her forget about its' presence. Slowly putting her small white hands to her ears, Evet stepped off of the porch, and headed for the main streets of Boston, the whining and scratching of the silence slowly dropping off as she went further away from her "family".

There wasn't really a point to her leaving – well, there was, but not the one to do with Doctor Harte – because Evet was skipping her appointments with Doctor Harte. He had come to America four years ago, and even though he was French, his English was impeccable. He was nice to look at. He had a quiet handsomeness about him, but more than that, he was warm. His chestnut stubble reminded Evet of an old oak tree that grew back in England.

It was always cold and miserable in England, except for the rare days where there was any Sun. The oak always had seemed to thrive and glow, even on the cloudiest of days. When someone had cut it down for furniture, Evet had been vaguely disappointed, but a few months later when they furniture maker had released the chairs and tables that had been made from the oak's body, they had still possessed the same glow to them. They gleamed and shone with the fjnishing polish that the carpenter had applied, but from the wood itself shone from within. No-one had noticed the glow when Evet asked them (of course, that was back in the days where the words would come when she asked), and her uncle had bought a mantelpiece from the tree.

The glow from the tree had been warm, and that was the kind of glow that she could see in Doctor Harte. His voice was very soothing, too; like the sound that gravel would make when it's being swished back and forth along the bed of a lazy creek. His entire being was like a forest, except for his eyes. They were thunderstorms, dark and unfathomable. Looming above her always, looking.

He was quite cold to the touch though. When his large hands brushed the tops of her arms, or grasped her hand as he tried to get a point across. Even when Evet watched as he held Anne-Marie through her sobbing, she could almost feel the chill penetrate her own clothes. It was like he moved right through the meagre flesh on her arms and instead touched her very bones.

Shaking those thoughts from her head, Evet wandered until she crossed the border into civilisation.


	3. In Boston with nary a coin

Evet lounged on some wooden crates filled with tea. The sharp corners of the wooden boxes tapped her shoulders insistently, as though they had a secret to tell. Evet ignored them, and regarded her new city with interest. It was pretty… Just pretty.

London, Evet's old place of residence, was good when she was a young girl: she had so much space to breathe because she was so small, and of course, back then he had also had Ebony. But as she grew older, the air was harder and harder to breathe – she's be in an empty room, gasping for breath. The constant threat of suffocation hung over her head, constricting her throat more and more until not a single word could scrape or squeeze its way out anymore. Without words battling for room in her throat, the air could slip in and out a bit easier, but not a lot.

Then Ebony started to wilt. To wither and die.

But Boston – The air was a lot bigger. Evet suspected that the trees had a lot to do with it. They stood at the fringes of the towns and their paths, breathing air right at the people. It wasn't hot and stale like the air that came out of the mouth holes of most people. It was clean, sweet. New.

The lights were being extinguished from the stalls around her, and from the insides of shops, too. People were dissipating from the bustling streets, and were wandering away to their homes for the night.

"Oi, lassy. Yeh gotta move from the crates," a Scottish accented voice said at her. As Evet straightened up, paying no heed to the final, deep dig from the corners that were desperate to talk to her, and stood up to the street. The dark blanket of the night sky was being unfolded and the corners were fast being tucked into the horizon. Evet thought that the night must be like an old quilt, because she could see the bright points of Heaven showing through the darkness where it had worn out with age, and she was sure that the angels had stretched out a particular hole to see Earth better because the moon was quite large tonight.

Lots of doors gently flowed past both sides of her as she started to wander towards the South-West. Soon she noticed that the stragglers of the night were beginning to appear, all of them slowly migrating to either the late-night wine-and-ale stalls or to the ramshackle brothels. A prostitute passed by Evet – on her way to work, no doubt – and Evet politely nodded her head at her. The lady's expression of suspicious confusion flashed in Evet's peripheral vision before her legs ignored the woman and carried the rest of her body forward. Soon she would be under the blanket on night in the forest, on her way to her house. The newly cobbled road gradually gave way to a rough dirt path that had the tracks of wagons already etched into its dusty, uneven skin.

The dirt road flowed beneath her feet as Evet started towards the house that her family was living in. It was up the hill, around the bend, then on the left path in the fork in the road. Unfortunately, it was about a mile of flat walking from there, but without a horse or wings, Evet had little choice but to march onwards. Luckily, there was a lot to look at as she walked. The trees were tall, but didn't look at her with worry or critique; they just stood around restfully, breathing down to her puny frame. Filled with air and a rhythm in her chest that made blood go to her toes and ears and some other places, the young English-American girl trailed back to a small wooden house under the protective guard of the trees, and the watchful vigil of the stars above.

While her day in the town had been long, it had not been particularly riveting, or eventful in any significant way. All she had done was look at food that she could not buy, people she could not help, and lives she couldn't fathom. Quite stupidly, she had left her coin purse back that the house, so she had nought to do but walk, sit, and consider.

As it happened, Evet had passed a church on the way to nowhere. The preacher spoke very ardently about how the coming of Christ was upon "us", and "we" should be ready for His divine wrath. He also mentioned how when Jesus had healed the blind, wounded and heartsick they were miracles, and all of the other blasphemous religions in the East were disgraces against His holy power. How could the other religions expect to be Saved if they denied themselves God and His mighty power?

Evet wasn't so sure. She had sat herself down on a stone bench next to a large Red Coat who must've been taking a break from his Red Coat duties (whatever they were). When she had initially sat down, the man had glared at her, but after she scooted across a bit, he lessened his gaze to a mistrustful sideways glance. After it was apparent that she wasn't going to give him any trouble, they had left their uneasy silence at just that.

The loyal church-goers had begun to sing a solemn hymn that Evet recognised as a long, pompous one that she had had to learn for Sunday school back in England.

The preacher had used the word 'miracle' as a describing word for a great feat of wonder, like when Jesus had healed the wounded. But wasn't life in itself a miracle of sorts? Nobody knew what caused life; not a soul knew what spark life truly was, so wasn't it a feat of great amazement and marvel? But life comes in so many different varieties, Evet reasoned, not just human kind.

The Red Coat shifted a bit beside her, and the singers within the church reached a chorus. Their mighty voices escaped the immense stone walls of the house of God, and spilled out into the streets, where a few wisps of song fell upon Evet's ears.

There was life in a dog; there was life in a violet: who was the preacher to say that their lives weren't miracles? Maybe every time a baby chick was born or a weed sprouted everyone should call it a miracle? Perhaps Jesus and Heaven were present in the smallest instances of creation.

Or perhaps not; the weeds and the violets would get plucked from Mother Earth, then they'll turn brown and die. The baby chick would grow up to be dinner, and the dog would sicken and die. If they weren't all poisoned, that is. Who knew, and who cared anymore?

Eve's reconsiderations were left hanging in the air where her head had been in an instant, as her entire body was sent crashing into the hard ground by something.

Someone…?


	4. A visit from Death

No, it was a something.

'_Damn rocks_,' Evet thought, grumbling as she tried to get her skinny bones to hoist her clothes off of the warm cheek of the Earth. Failing to do it successfully, she just twisted her scraped legs in front of her and ungracefully clawed her way back upright with the aid of a tree. Her faded grey dress, already soft and worn from frequent wearing and washing, had great big dirt smears on them.

Brushing off what dirt she could, Evet grimaced at her hands: the heels of her palms had been scraped during her fall, and were now scowling up at her with angry red gashes that were slowly weeping blood. The sixteen year old kept on walking – paying much more attention as to where she was placing her shoes now -, blowing air gently from her lungs onto her hands, making them sting and carp at her. Frowning from the stinging, Evet roughly tucked her hand under her armpits in an attempt to make them feel better, which actually seemed to have the opposite effect. Typical.

Evet eventually trudged her way to the house, and stepped up onto the new wooden porch, grateful to be back in the wooden arms of the house. Scraping her oversized boots onto the rough mat in front of the door, Evet laid a hand onto the doorknob, but hissed and drew her hand away as the cold metal sank its wintery teeth into her palm. Wrapping her hand in the grey fabric from her dress to counter the chill, she successfully opened the door, her empty shadow falling weakly onto the dim floor.

Looking around, Evet realised that she must've wandered back slower than she had anticipated: it was already quite dark, and the fire which they always kept alive for Ebony's benefit had crumbled away and was sulkily dying in the fireplace. Silently removing her boots and placing them next to the doorway, the skinny young lass made her way to the room she shared with Ebony and crawled under the covers next to the place where her real sister use to lay, before she died and the sick, grey ghost of her spirit took her place.

The moonlight practically shone through her skin onto the clean sheets beneath her, and her silhouette barely moved for her shallow breaths. Evet slowly blinked and she saw that Death was waiting for her sister. Death was always taught to be feared in her family; the cruel skellington man in the dark cloak with the big scythe who would take them wrongfully from this world and place them in the scorching hold of eternal damnation.

Letting her sad head sink into her pillow, Evet slid an arm underneath Ebony's waist and held her as close as she could without waking her. She laid her cold cheek upon her sister's hollow one, and just breathed.

Was Death really such a bad fellow if he wasn't pilfering souls, but gently unsticking them from their decaying bodies and cradling them as he ferried them into the light? Evet blinked outside of the window a few inches away from their bed, and saw Death standing there. He often came to visit Evet. He never said anything, nor did he move much, but he always watched Ebony as though she were a painting that made him sad.

He looked sad right now, as a matter of fact. He was dressed in a fine suit that was dark as charcoal, and his face was warmed by a short beard. Death carried no scythe, nor did he don any sinister robes. His eyes were so pale, almost as pale as fresh snow – it was like they were too clean.

He had walked almost all the battlefields in the world and took away the souls that were ready to pass on, and Evet reasoned that since his eyes had seen so much blood, so much dirt, and the overall stains upon men's souls, maybe they were so pale was because he tried to clean out his mind after each day; tried to forget what could not be forgotten, and ended up being reflected in his too-white eyes. They were just waiting to be stained and scarred again.

All she could do was hold onto the scrap of her sister a bit tighter, and shake her head at Death. Evet tried to tell him with her eyes that whatever that was left in her sister's body, he couldn't have. He stared back sadly.

Evet licked her dry, cracked lips and considered trying to speak again. It had been months since she'd pieced together enough words to produce a meaningful sentence, but to be honest did she really have anything worthwhile to say? Life in England hadn't really been anything special, save for the few years that Evet had had her big sister to explore the world with, but it felt as though Evet had well and truly lost her words. Perhaps they had tumbled out of her lips when she wasn't looking and dropped into the sea when they had been sailing to Boston. She briefly wondered if they were okay down there in the dark ocean waters before she remembered that in reality they were probably just dead.

Nevertheless, she wanted to see if she could. Evet kept her eyes locked with the Horseman standing on the grass, and used the cold air from her lungs to scrape out the words from her chest.

"Don't want… to be… alone," she rasped. Her words were scratchy and hung in the air disappointingly. They seemed to be so weak that Death wouldn't hear them because they were so pitiful that they couldn't make it past the glass in the windows. But when Evet next blinked, Death had gone.

It was a small comfort that Evet still had words. All in all, they didn't improve life to any measure, but she still felt the small tickle of warmth that the words brought as they tentatively explored her chest, awoken once more from their long period of non-existence. Finally, Evet let her eyelids close and sighed as the soft darkness of sleep carried her into a dreamless peace, unaware that her times of peace were soon to become very, very scarce.

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_Sorry about the hiatus. Felt lazy and uninspired. Review, if you'd like._


	5. Uncomfortable warmth

_I know it's taken me sinfully long to update, but I hope that it's worth it. To the few of you who read this, you truly mean a lot to me. Thank you. _

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Morning again.

A day of naught but trying to creep into a corner, like a spider being assaulted with a broom. Desperately seeking cover; protection; sanctuary.

The night returns, the darkness ordering the rest of the human race to shut their eyes and slumber, but also quietly slipping a precious gift into Evet's craving fingers – solitude. Every evening, the night would wrap it's inky blackness over the world, smothering the blinding sun and the pointless words that forced themselves into Evet's face, blinding her and deafening her. But soon the night's soothing barrier would leak away into the horizon, cast away by the Sun's furious beaming. And then it would be…

Morning again.

"Life is getting so humdrum, isn't it dear?" Anne-Marie sighed, cupping her chin in her right palm and resting her elbow on the freshly washed café table.

Evet went on twiddling her butter knife around her fingers, not bothering to respond. Typically when her mother ended a statement with the phrase "isn't it, dear?" an answer isn't required. Anne-Marie had brought her into town to have a "spot of lunch". They were going to traipse through Boston afterwards to search out a new Sunday school for Evet. Her traditional schooling had concluded before they set sail for America, in a dreary private school back in London. Evet had never enjoyed her schooling all that much, but she didn't dislike it either. It was just pretending to wake up after a sleepless night and walking into a building with a few people her age. The teachers' eyes had always swept right past her as they scanned the rooms for trouble-making students, but Evet couldn't have cared less. They treated her as though she was a shadow on the wall, but that is how she felt anyway.

"Did you know that the French call their step mothers '_belle-mere_'? It means 'beautiful mother'. Isn't that just darling?" Anne-Marie said casually, fluttering her fingers in a wave towards a bonny woman in a vile green dress that was passing by the window where they were seated. "Perhaps we should take a French class together? Oh wouldn't that be fun! I always wanted to learn another language, but I had to stop my schooling to work at the haberdashery shop, as you know."

Anne-Marie turned to Evet and smiled warmly. "You should truly appreciate you schooling opportunities, Evet. So many people aren't half as blessed as we have been. I used to think that it was a blessing that I was taken out of school, but now that I'm older, I realise that it was actually such a shame."

"Yes, mother," Evet mumbled, still focussed on her hands. She accidentally dropped the thick, blunt knife and it clattered onto the table, the wood and the silver complaining loudly. The sneering sunlight bounced off of the shiny surface, temporarily blinding Evet. She leaned back in her chair to escape the sun's assault, and crossed her legs.

"Evet, dear, it's not very ladylike to cross your legs in public," her mother said, frowning and pursing her lips. Wishing for nothing more than to return "home", Evet uncrossed her legs and placed her feet  
squarely shoulder width apart on the floor, toes facing forward.

"Very good, Evet!" Anne-Marie chirped, sounding pleasantly surprised "You're becoming a proper young lady right before my very eyes." She replicated Evet's empty smile, but filled hers with a quiet pride, and obvious affection.

That was the difference between the two women. Anne-Marie's thoughts and feelings were always on the surface, playing clearly for all to see; whereas Evet's emotions were like a small, dark spot in the corner. Many people were quite surprised when they found out that the pair were mother and child – Anne-Marie sported cheery clothes and a dapper outlook on life. Her hair was often curled, short and almost unnaturally blonde and it sat around her petite face. Her cheeks were rosy and large, and always split in a happy call, or a beam.

If Anne-Marie was the Sun, then Evet was the depths of the sea. Her hair was long, unloved and dark. She no longer knew if it was brown or black, because – well, did it really matter? And her eyes felt too big for the rest of her small, sharp face. They were a ghostly blue like the wisps of smoke from a blown-out candle in the night. Or maybe they were the old blue of a dress that was used up too much and now just sat in the wardrobe as a reminder of old times.

Or they were just blue. Who cared?

The door opened and some people left. The door closed.

"See, darling? I was telling Mrs Bennett that you and poor Ebony are such fine girls, save for Ebony's fragile health, naturally. She encouraged me to bring you two out into the town some more, and frankly I think it's a grand idea. It will give all the handsome young suitors in the town a chance to see what a fine young lady you are, and should any of them desire your hand, then great!"

The door opened and more people left. It closed again.

"Besides, methinks that the liveliness of the town could do Ebony a great deal of good. Perhaps the spritely air that a market beholds will be enough to pep her up a bit, and make her feel like her old self again. I hate to think of her doing nothing but languishing in the house all day while everyone around her lives their lives as they choose."

Opened again, people came in. Door closed.

"Oh, but is it not a good idea, Evet? Perhaps that will open up the chances for family outings! Just picture us, walking hand in hand in our good dresses, and Daniel in a smart outfit, wandering amongst the stalls… Who knows? We may encounter one of the Natives on our adventures. People say-" Anne-Marie leaned closer to Evet's glazed stare, the broad crimson smile still carved into her mouth hole "- yes, people say that they are _savages_. Could you scarcely believe it, dear heart? Ooh, if I were to meet one, I quite fancy that I would be rather tongue tied."

Open. Close.

Anne-Marie stirred her mug of tea thoughtfully, peeking up at her very unlikely daughter through her eyelashes. She was sure that Evet was more aware of the world around her than she let on, but if Evet wouldn't let more than four (rather curt) words out of her mouth a day, then what could she do? Anne-Marie had resolved long ago to let her youngest daughter walk her own path in life, and find her own words to speak, but it was very hard sometimes to see the girl who was such a treasure to her shut herself off from society, and shy away from her family like she couldn't bear their touch.

A gentle breeze swam through the open windows around the room, whistling slightly as they brushed past the wooden window frames. The curious air coursed through the area, brushing cheeks and turning the pages of newspapers and books to see what else was written. When irritated hands pressed the pages down, or grabbed skirts don from the cheeky grasp of the air, the breeze twirled past fingers and went on investigating the new space it had entered, prowling around every nook and cranny.

Evet knew perfectly well that her mother was regarding her, because she could feel the burn of the hazel gaze, like physical pressure on her skin. It make her uncomfortable, like a hand on your arm held there for too long. It reminded her of Doctor Harte. He had always held her hand, or put a hand on her shoulder when he tried to get her to communicate with him. His hands were too hot and… suffocating. They burnt her with their chill.

He too had also stared for too long; too intensely; too much.

Open.

Close.


End file.
